Before there was Michael Brown, there was Henry Davis, the 52-year-old African-American welder charged with destruction of property in 2009 for bleeding on the uniforms of police officers in Ferguson, Mo.
Although Davis' story and the version told by the police are wildly different, one detail is agreed upon by both parties: when Davis was released from custody, he was facing four counts of destroying property after an altercation with the police allegedly caused Davis' blood to sully their uniforms.
"Because they got a badge, and it's their word against mine," Davis told NPR. "What happened to innocent until proven guilty? It's the other way around."
At around 3 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2009, Davis said he was driving home from a friend's house. He said he missed his exit because of heavy rain, so he pulled off the highway in Ferguson, according to NPR. The police claim Davis was stopped because he was driving 100 mph, then detained because an officer smelled alcohol.
Officers said Davis refused a sobriety test. Davis said they never requested that he take one.
Davis said he expected to be released when police told him that they had confused him with another Henry Davis, wanted on an outstanding warrant, but instead, he was taken to a jail cell, according to NPR. Davis was told to share the single-mattress cell with another inmate, according to RT. When Davis asked for a sleeping mat of his own, he alleges the officers got violent.
"Because it's three in the morning," he later testified, according to The Daily Beast. "Who going to sleep on a cement floor?"
City of Ferguson's attorney Peter Dunne said that Davis resisted being put in the cell. "And after his persistent refusal to do that, one of the officers puts his hands on his chest and pushes him backward into the cell," Dunne recounted, according to NPR. "And then Mr. Davis recoils and strikes that officer in the face, breaking his nose."
Davis claims he only put his hands up to defend himself during the tussle with officers.
In Davis' version of events, the bleeding officer left while Davis was handcuffed by the remaining officers. "And that's when [Officer Michael White] ran in the cell and kicked me in the head," Davis said, according to NPR. "He was running. He ran in the cell and kicked me like he was kicking a football."
According to Washington Post, White identifies as a white man. White has been named in a 2011 excessive force lawsuit for allegedly holding down a mentally ill black man who was being tased. The man died after suffering a heart attack from the electric current.
According to the account given to RT from the official complaint: "A female police officer got on Plaintiff's back and handcuffed Plaintiff with Plaintiff's arms behind his back and lying on his stomach. Just before Plaintiff was picked up to his feet, Defendant White rushed in the cell a second time and kicked Plaintiff in the head while Plaintiff was lying on the floor and handcuffed with his arms behind his back."
"The paramedics came ... They said it was too much blood, I had to go to the hospital," Davis told The Daily Beast. Davis was not treated by hospital staff because he refused treatment until his injuries were photographed.
"I wanted a witness and proof of what they done to me," Davis said, according to The Daily Beast.
"I thought they was gonna kill me," Davis said, according to NPR. "I didn't know what they was trying to do. Because, I didn't put up no struggle or nothing for them to come here and do that to me."
When Davis' lawyer, James Schottel, requested the jail cell surveillance footage, the police provided him with the wrong tape. Later, the police department told Schottel that the hours during the scuffle had been recorded over, according to NPR.
Schottel is skeptical, according to NPR. "This would have all been recorded on the videotape," the attorney said. "And you know, then they turn around and they allege that Mr. Davis punched one of the officers. Well, I guarantee you [if] Mr. Davis punched one of the officers and he wasn't kicked in the head, that video would have been blown up on a big screen and would have been delivered with a bow on it from them immediately after the case was filed."
Following the advice of his lawyer, Davis ultimately avoided a trial, accepted a guilty plea and paid $3,000 in fines and fees. The drunk driving charge was reduced to "careless driving," according to NPR, and two counts of property destruction stuck.
"When he strikes the officer and he's bleeding himself, his blood is getting on every surface of the cell, including all of the officers and all of their uniforms," Dunne said, according to NPR. "None of this would have happened but for Mr. Davis' really unreasonably, uncooperative and ultimately violent attitude. So it was totally appropriate to charge him with that because he was totally responsible for it."
Last year, a court cited limited immunity for police officers from being sued and dismissed Davis' lawsuit, but some of the officers that testified recanted their statements that Davis bled on them, according to NPR. One of the officers that was charged with striking Davis and breaking his nose is Kim Tihen - now a member of the Ferguson City Council. Tihen identifies as a white woman, according to Mother Jones.
Davis asked the court to reinstate his lawsuit in July.
The Department of Justice recently said when it looks into the shooting of Brown, it will take a look at Davis' case as well, according to NPR.
Since Davis' run-in with Ferguson police officers, a Ferguson corrections officer has been accused of raping a pregnant woman in 2013, and more recently, the Ferguson police department has fallen under intense scrutiny after the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
